Pete Doherty has insisted he ‘didn’t kill’ aspiring actor Mark Blanco the night he fell to his death from a balcony.
Mark, 30, fell from a property in Whitechapel, East London, where the Libertines frontman, 45, had been attending a party in December 2006.
Rock star Pete has previously denied any knowledge of how Mark died but admitted to running away from the scene to avoid a run in with the police over drug possession.
And speaking to Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4’s Young Again show on Tuesday, Pete insisted he ‘didn’t kill’ the actor and shared his frustration at people who weren’t there disputing the facts of the night.
‘It’s frustrating for me really, because the facts are disputed – but not by anybody that was there,’ he said.
‘I didn’t throw him out of a window, off a balcony, I didn’t kill him. What do you want me to say?’
Pete Doherty has insisted he ‘didn’t kill’ aspiring actor Mark Blanco the night he fell to his death from a balcony (Pictured in 2023)
Speaking to Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4’s Young Again show on Tuesday, Pete (Pictured in 2005) said he ‘didn’t kill’ the actor
CCTV footage of the night in question showed Pete – with girlfriend Kate Russell-Pavier, 19, and his ‘minder’ Jonathan Jeannevol, known locally as ‘Johnny Headlock’ – walking past the body and then running away from the scene.
During a Channel 4 documentary ‘Pete Doherty, Who Killed My Son?’ which aired in 2023, the dramatic video was watched by Mark’s mother Sheila Blanco.
She said: ‘This is one piece of crucial evidence. I choose not to watch it too often, because this is the last time Mark was alive. It shows Mark being projectiled out over the railing and then straight down to the bricks and pavement below.
‘A couple of minutes later we see Pete Doherty come down, stepping over Mark without stopping. And then he seems to pick up something from the ground and run away, followed by Headlock. It is absolutely callous, reprehensible lack of humanity.’
Speaking on Louis Theroux’s podcast, Pete admitted he ran away on the fatal night when Mark lost his life.
While he denied any knowledge of how the actor fell or whether he was pushed from the balcony of a flat in East London, he described the incident as ‘shady and f***ed up’.
Appearing on Louis’s Interview series, Pete opened up about the incident, confessing he believes the anger from Mark’s mother Sheila was ‘misplaced.’
The rockstar, who recently revealed all about his brutal drug addiction in new documentary, admitted he regretted running away, yet he fled the scene for fear of being arrested due to his possession of class A drugs.
Mark Blanco is pictured with his mother Sheila on his Cambridge graduation day in June 1997
Pete has admitted running away on the night Mark fell to his death and described the incident as ‘shady and f***ed up’ during an interview with Louis Theroux (pictured in 2004)
He told the journalist: ‘You can’t blame her for that. Her son fell to his death and some people, I think, genuinely, believe he was thrown to his death. And then I’m on camera running away.
‘I’ve never met Sheila Blanco, but I can understand her anger. I think her anger at me, well, it is misplaced.’
Marco sadly died in hospital from head injuries a day after he was found under the balcony of Doherty’s literary agent and friend Paul Roundhill.
‘No one knows what happened because no one saw it. I certainly didn’t see it’, added Pete.
‘I probably should have stood my ground, taken a deep breath and had the f***ing balls to stay there, flush everything down the toilet and be there when the police came.
‘But I didn’t want to see the police. It was a f***ing inconvenience to me and that’s an awful thing to say. He’s lying dying in the street and I was concerned about getting nicked for possession.’
Pete told the journalist that he regretted running away, yet he fled the scene for fear of being arrested due to his possession of class A drugs
Pete’s addiction led to him having multiple run ins with the law and the rockstar was in and out of prison.
He added: ‘I just remember feeling so much f***ing relief when I told the police what I knew and they believed me.’
Yet Pete also admitted to Louis that him and Mark didn’t get on, ‘There was a bit of friction between us.’
Reflecting on the night, Pete recalled, ‘We all had an altercation with Mark Blanco. There was pushing and shoving. The next thing he’s on the floor and his skull’s cracked open.’